Introduction

Over the past few months, we have enjoyed a tremendous amount of Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 solutions coming through the lab. Until recently, the LaCie 5Big Thunderbolt we reviewed late last year was the most ambitious platform we have tested.

Today, things change quite a bit for myself, as we take things to an entirely new level of Thunderbolt storage with the Areca ARC-8050T2. The 8050T2 as we will call it from here on out, is a complete 6Gb/s SAS capable RAID storage solution, with compatibility on both Mac and Windows platforms. The 8050T2 utilizes a dual-core 800MHz RoC with 1GB of DDR3 memory and supports a hardware RAID 6 engine allowing for two drive failures without impacting data retention.

Another feature of the 8050T2 is its intelligent power function, which allows the RAID box to turn on and off with the host system to enhance data integrity. In addition to this, the Areca 8050T2 supports a backup battery option that protects all data in cache in the event of power loss.

Let's take a close look at it now.

Pricing, Availability and Specifications

Above we have the simplified specifications for the ARC-8050T2. As you can see, the RAID box supports eight 6Gb/s SAS or SATA SSDs or HDDs, along with that it can be set as a bootable volume from Thunderbolt capable Macintosh computers.

RAID levels include 0, 1, 3, 5 and 6, along with higher levels 10, 30, 50 and 60. In addition, we have support for multiple RAID and stripe size up to 1MB.

MSRP for the Areca ARC-8050T2 is set at $1799.99 with a three-year warranty. Availability is high at this point with many online retailers having the unit in stock.

PRICING: You can find the Areca ARC-8050T2 DAS for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

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